It’s 5am as you wake, according to your muse. The dank, heavy air of the improvised prison cell you’re in has gotten even more stale after your fitful sleep for the past few hours. You’ve had some time to think through the grab job that got you here and you recognize that it was pretty well organized. You’re no easy mark. They pulled you right off the street and had you cuffed and in this makeshift holding tank in the hold of this ship before you even knew what hit you. Since you woke up you’ve had your muse replay the whole thing for you a dozen times, and you can’t see a single hole in the plan where you could have slipped through the net. You’re also curious about who might be in the four identical cells lined up along the hull.

Not that it matters, because apparently you’re going to find out. The containment seal on the door breaks and the room is flooded with light. The same guards who dragged you up here drag you out again to join the four others and walk you up some stairs and down a long gangway over the cargo hold to the crew quarters of the ship. You have fleeting thoughts of escape, but the two reeking neo-hominid guards flanking your little group make that option look pretty shit—just one of these uplift Silverback gorillas could rip your arms off for you in a fight, even if they weren’t in manacles behind your back.

So you go along peacefully. For now. Keep your options open. The great apes stop and shove you not into a grubby bunkroom or mess hall like you expected, but a comfortably appointed conference room. Another two Silverbacks stand guard to either side of another door at the end of the table, and as the five of you enter, blinking against the sudden glare of the brighter lights, the guards escorting you remove your manacles and invite you to sit down with a grunt—all the ruder since you know these fuckers can talk.

Alright, players. Let's get going. You've got a few minutes yet before your host arrives, so I'd like to see a post from each of you introducing yourselves to the group (in a way that fits the narrative, not "hi, I'm bob, and I kill uplifted sea cucumbers"). You don't know each other. Sarin has a vague sense of familiarity with the ship--you're pretty sure it's a Direct Action vessel--but nothing confirmed. Your basic perception is that the guards are not openly hostile, but would think nothing of tearing your head off your neck if you try anything funny. Unarmed and unable to coordinate as a team without discussing openly, a fight is probably a really, really bad idea.

This break will last just a post or two from each of you, but feel free to converse with each other. I'll interrupt when the time seems right.

Sarin quickly scans the room, fellow captives, and especially the gorilla grunts with his enhanced vision. How humiliating to get stuck in one of those. I don't care how strong you are, everybody assumes you're an idiot.

Vargr squints momentarily against the harsh light before his eyes adjust and provide a clear view of the conference room. He had moved slowly and steadily through the corridors and along the catwalk - the apes are thoroughly deadly and professional enough not to be taken in by a stumble ruse. Besides, he doesn't know the layout of the ship well enough to make an escape feasible anyway. Along the way, he had tested the manacles, gently flexing his wrists, but their nature and quality have now become moot.

He takes a chair along the side of the table, where he can keep an eye on the guards at each end of the room. They stare impassively ahead, not even looking at their charges. They're pretty sure we're not a threat, he thinks. He closes his eyes for a moment and observes the flow and ebb of electric current in the furnishings and walls, seeking the junctions and confluences that might indicate sensors, recording devices or, more to the point, weaponry.[Electrical Sense]

Opening his eyes, he looks around the room at his fellow... prisoners? honored guests? Whatever. None of them look familiar, but that doesn't mean a lot. Muninn, he thinks, and queries his muse for any recollection of the four men seated with him.

The answer comes back in a half second. Nothing in internal memory. And I don't seem to have full mesh access to check external sources..

He nods slightly. OK, hand off to Huginn to analyze what I'm seeing and hearing and what's blocking you. Alert me to imminent threats, but otherwise let me focus. The muse acknowledges with a sharp krawk.

Vargr nods slightly at the other men, and leans back in his chair, a ready tension virtually unreadable under his relaxed demeanor.

Remember that these are percentile tests, so you want to roll under the number, not over. This roll for wysire is a perception roll, and your perception is base 50 per your last CS. So you want to roll under 50. I'm giving you a +10 mod to the roll because this should be an easy perception for you. So we roll a d100, looking for a roll of 60 or less. 1d100 = (12) = 12

Sarin's comment gets no response from the guard he's identified as Frasier (as expected, he remembers Frasier as being pretty disciplined) but one of the other guards at the far end of the room snorts a laugh. Frasier looks daggers at him and bares his teeth. Obviously he's relatively new to the morph and unable to control the natural biological responses of the body, letting them dictate his response.

Dan's electrical sense is a +10 to the perception target number, with base perception of 35, so target of 45. Since this room is a conference room and not trying to keep any secrets, we'll give him another +20 on the check, for a target number of 55. 1d100 = (7) = 7

Vargr observes no weapons or anything especially surprising in the walls, though there is a faint impression of considerable electrical signatures going on just through the wall in the room next door. Not enough to get a sense of it, but your knowledge of spacecraft leads you to guess it's a security room of some sort. You didn't come forward enough in the ship to be near the cockpit, and it's not uncommon to keep a security station near the cargo hold as security against pirates…or when you expect to transport cargo that might be of a mind to escape.

Isaac didn't appear so much perturbed by the general situation as he was annoyed at having his arms restrained. As soon as they were released he whispered loudly in an exasperated manner, "Finally" and began a process of smoothing out wrinkles in his clothes. In and of itself this wasn't out of the ordinary but it began to get a little awkward after the fifth or sixth time. Relieved, he looked up at the others and said, "Greetings. I'm Isaac."

If it makes sense Isaac will make use of his knowledge of Kinesics to read body-languages around the room - in game terms it probably doesn't matter reading other players since we know meta-game we're all on the same team but that's what realistically Isaac would be doing.

Benedict concentrates on having his muse, Ieva, replays the grab job, again, and again. There is no single hole in the plan, obviously, but there must be a signature, or a detail that gives a clue about the ins and the outs he thinks. [Profession: Intelligence Ops]

After getting lost in thought for a moment, he seems to realize the presence of the guards, and the presence of his fellow guests, or whatever. He find the idea of such an informal invitation amusing, like an outdated cliché. He raises a smile, and focus on his own memory, helped by Ieva, to recognize his four fellow guests. Benedict is really confident on his eidetic memory and the tons of informations he gathered. He might hardly believe they are totally unknown.

Rolling a d100 against a target number of 60 (Benedict's skill in Intelligence Ops) - 20 (it was a professional, solid plan, as mentioned, and very difficult to get any clue from) to get a read on the grab job.1d100 = (19) = 19

On a sudden hunch, Benedict silently asks Ieva to jump back in his playback of the grab. Not to the moment he realized he was in trouble as he'd been viewing all morning, but about thirty minutes before. Puzzled, he plays it back again. There! In the playback, there's someone following him, from the time he left his previous meeting. It's almost blindingly obvious, as if they're making no effort to hide. A beautiful female exalt morph, with sharp green eyes and a close cropped hairdo dyed purple. At one point they even made eye contact briefly. It's all right there, in the recording. She's on him right until about two minutes before they hit him, then disappears.

But what the fuck? He doesn't remember it, and Benedict remembers EVERYTHING. He can see it, plain as day on the replay, but he can't remember what he's watching. Like he's viewing someone else's feed. Everything else is just as he remembers, but it's clear that they got the drop on him so easily because of this woman tailing him. How is this possible?

Vargr looks around the room, making a note of "Isaac" and "Benedict." His suspicion level is running high, so he decides to give nothing away [Emotional Dampers], affecting only a sardonic half-smile.

In a flat voice, he says "You can call me Vargr. Since none of us seems to know what's going on here, I expect that we're shortly going to be joined by our host." Without changing tone, he adds, "I can hardly wait."

Isaac, on top of the usual strangeness (and even distaste) one feels when looking at a Remade, notices that Sarin is examining the room and all of the occupants tactically. As if he's looking for strengths, weaknesses and a plan. Clearly he already has unsettled both guards with his lucky guess at Frasier's identity, since he obviously couldn't identify him in the gorilla-morph. He seems emotionally calm, but activated to the situation.

Hoping to get further under the guards' 'skins', he says, "Frasier, I thought you were going to get that monkey off your back."

With a small, humorless smile, he looks into the eyes of the rest of the group and says, "I know about my little issues, but what did you do to piss off Direct Action?"

Vargr looks at Isaac for a long moment. Maintaining his flat affect, he says, "Direct Action is not among my problems. But why do you assume we've pissed someone off? Maybe we've won a contest and these fur-enhanced gentlemen are simply here to escort us to the prize."

Benedict shows the perfect smile of a business executive: "Gentlemen, Direct action is the least of our worries. They are efficient professionals of course, but they lack imagination. We do not pay for their creativity."

Looking at the Silverback guards: "I mean no offense, sirs."

Back to the group, ignoring the guards and the surveillance system: "This exfiltration was orchestrated by a rather talented and certainly well informed sponsor." Benedict pauses. "If I understand correctly, you seem to know Direct Action, or even have an idea of what led you here. May I ask you a few questions gentlemen?"

As he talks, Benedict continuously observes the reactions of the group and the guards.[Situational awareness + Kinesics]

Vargr shrugs. "Those handcuffs weren't meant to hold us. They were... symbolic, maybe. Whoever brought us here knows enough about me to take me by surprise. That's not easy, and I assume the same is true of you. Anyone who can do that wouldn't make the mistake of thinking handcuffs would be adequate security. Certainly not as effective as surrounding us with ape uplifts and putting us in an unknown ship in unknown space - neither of which necessarily implies hostility."

He looks around at everyone. "I'm sure we've all made enemies, but I know that mine wouldn't bother with all this. I'm thinking it's more likely to be a job offer."

Facial recognition turns up nothing. These four are all unfamiliar egos to Vargr, and the morphs aren't recognized.

Steinn's kinesics is 20. Perception is 50, so I'm making a roll against a target of 60 (-10 for difficulty) but you won't get anything special from your application of kinesics unless it's under 15 1d100 = (97) = 97. Ooh. Ouch....

The gorilla guards' impassive expressions betray nothing to Steinn. If he didn't know better, he wouldn't even be sure they were uplifts to begin with. He is completely startled out of his train of thought when the door at the other end of the room slides open, jumping a little bit in his seat and almost falling over.

Feeling a bit more awake now, Mr. Steinn? The sneer is audible in his voice as he moves to the head of the table and sits down. He clears his throat. Your new friend Vargr here has the right of it. This little rendezvous is about a job.

The man at the end of the table needs no introduction. You all know who he is: Xanthes Gris. In a galaxy full of perfectly remade bodies, an aging, scarred slicer morph missing an eye is hard to forget. Especially when that eye has been replaced with a glowing sapphire sensor array instead. Gris is a serious player with Direct Action, one of the faces you often see in the background when DA is making announcements on the mesh. Rumors swirl around his role, but it's generally agreed he's the number one guy at DA for back channel dealings and black ops, the troubleshooter. He holds up a hand condescendingly before you can speak, and addresses one of you directly.

Mr. Sarin—I’m sorry your glorious return to Direct Action couldn't be handled in a more…official…capacity, but what we’re about to discuss is not ‘official’ DA business. He glares openly at Sarin. And since some of my colleagues are convinced your presence on this team is necessary, you had to come aboard the same way everyone else did. As for myself, I'm rather sorry your return to the hypercorp is happening at all, given your attitude upon leaving.

Gris folds his hands on the table and spreads his lips in what he probably thinks is a smile.

There will be a chance to interact momentarily, apologies for the longish post but let me get all this out there rather than wasting days on witty banter.

There will be a more detailed briefing uploaded via local mesh in a minute, but for now this should suffice. The images your muse is displaying for you is the best known morph of one Cavara Ndugu, a former Direct Action employee turned terrorist. The video loop you're watching is of a male mentor-type biomorph, speaking passionately to a group of armed men. There is no sound associated, but from the look of it Ndugu is extremely agitated. Gris continues. Ndugu was working in our research laboratories when he stole a valuable weapons system and disappeared, only to re-emerge months later as the leader of a small militant group calling themselves Maendeleo. They made some well-coordinated but ultimately ineffectual attacks on Direct Action facilities and Ndugu was sentenced to final death by the Direct Action Council of Arbiters. Over the past several months we eliminated every known backup of Ndugu's ego--as well as a few secret backups--culminating in a raid on Maendeleo's headquarters inThe Belt where we located and destroyed the backups for Ndugu and everyone in the group on their local network. In that raid Cavara Ndugu’s morph was killed, but his cortical stack—the last remaining backup of his ego—was removed by one of the mercs they’d hired to defend the base and slipped through our fingers. I want that cortical stack. The merc who stole it is reportedly offering it for sale, but not to Direct Action. The bidding is between the remaining Maendeleo soldiers trying to recover their leader and an unknown third party that we assume wants access to Ndugu’s knowledge of Direct Action operations. That, obviously, is unacceptable to us. And that is where you come in.

This team has been carefully chosen. Under the leadership of a trusted DA intelligence operative you will be tasked with recovering the cortical stack of Cavara Ndugu. That is your primary objective. Your secondary objective is to ascertain the location of the weapon system Ndugu stole from Direct Action. We have…interrogated…several of Ndugu’s backups and we’ve learned only that he entrusted a woman named Urven to store the system in secret until needed. We have been unable to locate this Urven or any of her ego backups to this point. Additionally, there is an ample bonus available to you for identifying the third-party buyer for the cortical stack and their relationship to Direct Action.

The last thing of import here, and the one that raises the degree of difficulty to the level that requires a specialized team like this, is that all of this must be accomplished without alerting Maendeleo to the fact that DA has compromised the buy. We could easily send in a squad to simply eliminate the mercenary and his defenses and retake the stack, but we fear that without hope of recovering Ndugu’s leadership the Maendeleo forces will resort to unleashing the stolen weapon, a possibility that we simply cannot abide.

Gris emphasizes this last line by pounding his fist on the table. His anger is evident. Are there any questions?